Floor Statements

Mr. President, today, along with Senator Lautenberg, I am introducing legislation, the Clean Ocean and Safe Tourism Anti- Drilling Act, or COAST Anti-Drilling Act, to ban oil and gas drilling off the Mid-Atlantic and Northern Atlantic coast.

The people of New Jersey, and other residents of States along the Atlantic Coast, do not want oil or gas rigs anywhere near their treasured beaches and fishing grounds. Such drilling poses serious threats not only to our environment, but to our economy, which depends heavily on tourism along our shore. Coastal tourism is New Jersey's second-largest industry, and the New Jersey Shore is one of the fastest growing regions in the country. According to the New Jersey Department of Commerce, tourism in the Garden State generates more than $31 billion in spending, directly and indirectly supports more than 836,000 jobs, more than 20 percent of total State employment, generates more than $16.6 billion in wages, and brings in more than $5.5 billion in tax revenues to the State.

Until the Bush administration came into office, there was no reason to suspect that drilling was even a remote possibility. Since 1982, a statutory moratorium on leasing activities in most Outer Continental Shelf, OCS, areas has been included annually in Interior appropriations acts. In addition, President George H.W. Bush declared a leasing moratorium on many OCS areas on June 26, 1990, under section 12 of the OCS Lands Act. On June 12, 1998, President Clinton used the same authority to issue a memorandum to the Secretary of the Interior that extended the moratorium through 2012 and included additional OCS areas.

Given the longstanding consensus against drilling in these areas, I was deeply disturbed to discover that on May 31, 2001, the Minerals Management Service released a request for proposals, RFP, to conduct a study of the environmental impacts of drilling in the Mid- and North- Atlantic. The RFP noted that ``there are areas with some reservoir potential, for example off the coast of New Jersey.'' In addition, the RFP explained that the study would be conducted ``in anticipation of managing the exploitation of potential and proven reserves.'' I believed that the RFP was inappropriate and misguided, and I was pleased when at my urging and the urging of other coastal Senators, the administration rescinded it.

After our strong bipartisan coalition fought off the Department of the Interior RFP, our coastal coalition came together again to fight off the Outer Continental Shelf inventory provisions of last year's energy bill. The bill directed the Department of the Interior to inventory all potential oil and natural gas resources in the entire Outer Continental Shelf, including areas off of the New Jersey coast. The bill would have allowed the use of seismic surveys, dart core sampling, and other exploration technologies, all of which would leave these areas vulnerable to oil spills, drilling discharges and damage to coastal wetlands.

These provisions run directly counter to language that Congress has included annually in appropriations bills to prevent leasing, preleasing, and related activities in most areas of the Outer Continental Shelf, including areas off the New Jersey coast. Fortunately, this provision was dropped last year, but it is likely that it will resurface during debate on the Energy bill this year, and it is clear that we need to once and for all ban drilling off the coast of New Jersey and the rest of the Mid- and North-Atlantic.

So considering the minimal benefit and significant downside of drilling off the coast of New Jersey, it is not worth threatening over 800,000 New Jersey jobs to recover what the MMS estimated in 2000 to be 196 million barrels

of oil, only enough to last the country barely 10 days.

I certainly don't think it is worth the risk, and it is time for Congress to act to resolve this question once and for all. That is why I am introducing the COAST Anti-Drilling Act. The Clean Ocean and Safe Tourism Anti-Drilling Act would permanently ban drilling for oil, gas and other minerals in the Mid- and North-Atlantic.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact this important legislation. Doing so would ensure the people of New Jersey and neighboring States that they need not fear the specter of oil rigs off their beaches.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I stand today to speak in support of an issue that affects every woman in this country--the fight for equal pay for men and women.

Today is Equal Pay Day--the day when the wages paid to American women ``catch up'' to the wages paid to men last year. So, essentially, women have to work almost four months more than men who do the same job just to bring home the same amount of income.

Until the early 1960s, newspapers published separate want-ads for men and women. Some newspapers even printed the same job in the male and female listings, but with separate pay scales. Full-time working women would earn on average between 59-64 cents for every dollar their male counterparts earned doing the exact same job.

Finally, in 1963, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act making it illegal to pay women lower rates for the same job strictly on the basis of gender. Since its passage, we have made significant progress in the fight for equal pay. Women now earn 76 cents for every dollar earned by a man in the same position.

While we have improved over the last 40 years, however, we still have a long way to go. Apparently this Administration, however, thinks we can stop fighting for equal pay. The Department of Labor quietly eliminated its Equal Pay Matters Initiative, removed all information about narrowing the wage gap from its Web site, and refused to use available tools to identify violations of equal pay laws.

Today, we teach our young girls that they can be anything they want to be, that no job or career is out of their reach. What we do not tell our young girls is that once they get that job and start their career, they will make 24 percent less than their fellow male coworker even if they do the same exact and work just as hard. And if they are women of color, they will make 34 percent less. If the U.S. Department of Labor thinks that this is acceptable, then we may as well tell those young girls to stop dreaming because their work will not be valued as much as their brother's will.

I think we should continue to encourage women who are in the workforce and young girls who will be in the workforce that working hard will payoff. That is why I am proud to be a co-sponsor of two bills that will move this country toward equal pay for women--Senator Clinton's Paycheck Fairness Act and Senator Harkin's Fair Pay Act.

The Paycheck Fairness Act will enforce equal pay laws for Federal contractors and prohibit employers from retaliating against employees who share salary information with their co-workers. This bill also addresses what is known as the ``negotiation gap.'' Women are eight times less likely to negotiate their starting salaries then men. In order to empower women to negotiate their salaries, the Paycheck Fairness Act creates a training program to help women strengthen their negotiation skills. Finally, the bill requires the Department of Labor to continue collecting and disseminating information about women workers.

While the Paycheck Fairness Act addresses pay inequity among men and women for performing the same job, the Fair Pay Act addresses the problem of women not getting paid what they are worth for doing jobs that may be different than those performed by men, but are of equal value to the employer. The Fair Pay Act requires employers to provide equal pay for jobs that are comparable in skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions. The Fair Pay Act would apply to each company individually and would prohibit companies from reducing other employees' wages to achieve pay equity.

This issue is not just one of equality among men and women--it is a bread-and-butter issue for working families. According to the National Women's Law Center, if working women earned the same as men, those who work the same number of hours; have the same education, age, and union status; and live in the same region of the country, their annual family incomes would rise by $4,000 and poverty rates would be cut in half. As we all know, family earnings determine where and how a family lives, the education of their children, the family's health care, their standard of living, including whether workers have a pension on which to retire comfortably. We're talking about serious consequences to this pervasive problem.

Since the beginning of my tenure, I have been very involved with this issue. When the administration wanted to eliminate the Equal Pay Initiative within the Department of Labor's Women's Bureau, I wrote a letter to President Bush expressing my outrage at the Department's actions. In addition, I was also a co-sponsor of the Civil Rights Act of 2004, which included the Paycheck Fairness Act.

I commend my colleagues, Senator Clinton and Senator Harkin, for their commitment to the equal pay issue. I am proud to join them as co- sponsors of the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Fair Pay Act. I believe that these two pieces of legislation will help put an end to the pay disparity between men and women and bring us closer to the year when we celebrate Equal Pay Day on January 1.

Mr. President, today, along with Senator Lautenberg, I am introducing legislation, the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area Act, to establish the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area in the State of New Jersey. I am proud to be joining my New Jersey colleagues, Representatives Rodney Frelinghuysen and Rush Holt, who have introduced this legislation in the House of Representatives, with the support of the entire New Jersey delegation.

This legislation recognizes the critical role that New Jersey played during the American Revolution. In fact, New Jersey was the site of nearly 300 military engagements that helped determine the course of our history as a Nation. Many of these locations, like the site where George Washington made his historic crossing of the Delaware River, are well known and preserved. Others, such as the Monmouth Battlefield State Park in Manalapan and Freehold, and New Bridge Landing in River Edge, are less well known and are threatened by development or in critical need of funding for rehabilitation.

To help preserve New Jersey's Revolutionary War sites, this legislation would establish a Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area, linking about 250 sites in 15 counties. This designation would authorize $10 million to assist preservation, recreational and educational efforts by the State, county and local governments as well as private cultural and tourism groups. The program would be managed by the non-profit Crossroads of the American Revolution Association.

Simply put, we are the Nation that we are today because of the critical events that occurred in New Jersey during the American Revolution and the many who died fighting there. By enacting the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area Act of 2005, we will pay tribute to the patriots who fought and died in New Jersey so that we might become a Nation free from tyranny.

In the 107th Congress, I was proud to see the Senate approve this legislation as part of a bipartisan package of heritage area bills. Unfortunately, the bill was not approved in the House of Representatives. I will work even harder in the 109th Congress to see that this important legislation passes both houses and goes to the President's desk for his signature. I hope my colleagues will support this legislation, and I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today, along with Senator Lautenberg, I am introducing legislation, the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area Act, to establish the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area in the State of New Jersey. I am proud to be joining my New Jersey colleagues, Representatives Rodney Frelinghuysen and Rush Holt, who have introduced this legislation in the House of Representatives, with the support of the entire New Jersey delegation.

This legislation recognizes the critical role that New Jersey played during the American Revolution. In fact, New Jersey was the site of nearly 300 military engagements that helped determine the course of our history as a Nation. Many of these locations, like the site where George Washington made his historic crossing of the Delaware River, are well known and preserved. Others, such as the Monmouth Battlefield State Park in Manalapan and Freehold, and New Bridge Landing in River Edge, are less well known and are threatened by development or in critical need of funding for rehabilitation.

To help preserve New Jersey's Revolutionary War sites, this legislation would establish a Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area, linking about 250 sites in 15 counties. This designation would authorize $10 million to assist preservation, recreational and educational efforts by the State, county and local governments as well as private cultural and tourism groups. The program would be managed by the non-profit Crossroads of the American Revolution Association.

Simply put, we are the Nation that we are today because of the critical events that occurred in New Jersey during the American Revolution and the many who died fighting there. By enacting the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area Act of 2005, we will pay tribute to the patriots who fought and died in New Jersey so that we might become a Nation free from tyranny.

In the 107th Congress, I was proud to see the Senate approve this legislation as part of a bipartisan package of heritage area bills. Unfortunately, the bill was not approved in the House of Representatives. I will work even harder in the 109th Congress to see that this important legislation passes both houses and goes to the President's desk for his signature. I hope my colleagues will support this legislation, and I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I was about to call up amendment No. 366, which I am going to pull back from at this point. We are working with a number of subcommittees to get exact language, but I would like to go ahead and frame the debate. Senator Brownback will be joining me.

This is actually the Darfur Accountability Act which we had introduced on the floor at an earlier point. We have 30 cosponsors of the amendment. We will continue to work with the appropriate subcommittees and others to refine the language before we bring it back.

This amendment we will be offering is one that parallels the importance which is now being placed on moving this supplemental, which is absolutely essential to support our men and women in uniform. They deserve our support. We all know that. It is most certain that I will be voting positively with regard to making sure that our deeds and words match in our support of the troops and that we allocate our resources accordingly. That is what the debate on the supplemental is about. I look forward to working on that.

But so, too, there are those the Congress and the administration have already acknowledged are being subjected to acts of genocide, the Black Muslim villagers of Darfur, Sudan. This genocide is being committed by their own countrymen with the support of their Government. It is time for action. Here, too, we need to put our words and deeds into a match. They need to be congruent. This amendment is intended to deal with the emergency, the urgently needed response to this ongoing genocide taking place in Darfur as I stand here, a place where there have been killings of up to 10,000 people every month, 300 to 350 human beings almost every day.

Never have we been so aware of mankind's horrible history, and yet so reluctant to act on its lessons as it applies to this situation in Darfur. This month we are commemorating the 11th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. ``Hotel Rwanda,'' the movie, is showing on thousands of screens in homes across the country, and we continue to recall our shameful failure to prevent the slaughter of 800,000 people. Do we need to have a play 5 years from now or 10 years from now called ``Hotel Darfur''?

April 17 marks the 30th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge takeover in Cambodia, the beginning of a genocide that killed between 1 and 2 million people. Do we need to revisit the killing fields? In January, the liberation of Auschwitz was commemorated by the Congress and by a special session of the United Nations General Assembly. Throughout all of these commemorations and remembrances, we hear the same words: Never again. Never again will we accept the slaughter of our fellow human beings. Never again will we stand by and let this happen.

As Vice President Cheney said eloquently at the Holocaust commemorations in Poland:

[We] look to the future with hope--that He may grant us the

wisdom to recognize evil in all its forms . . . and give us

courage to prevent it from ever rising again.

There is perhaps no more powerful moral voice over the last half century than author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Last year he spoke to the Darfur issue.

He said:

How can a citizen of a free country not pay attention? How

can anyone, anywhere not feel outraged? How can a person,

whether religious or secular, not be moved by compassion? And

above all, how can anyone who remembers remain silent? That

is what the issue in Darfur, Sudan, is about. That is why

this Darfur Accountability Act--this amendment that we are

speaking to today--is so important.

I ask unanimous consent that the full remarks by Mr. Wiesel on Darfur be printed in the Record.

Tragically, since that speech by Mr. Wiesel, we have seen precious little actionable courage in preventing the genocide that rages in Darfur. Last July, the Congress recognized that genocide is taking place and voted on it here on the floor of the Senate. In September, the Bush administration did the same. Yet, since then, the situation has only deteriorated.

Estimates of the death toll in Darfur now range from between 250,000 to over 300,000 human beings. Killings, torture, destruction of villages, rape and other forms of sexual violence all continue. More than 1.8 million persons have been forced from their homes, and unless the attacks subside and access by humanitarian organizations improves, as many as 3 million Sudanese people could be displaced by the end of the year.

Let me say that these displaced individuals are going into camps strategically. We need to understand that this is not breeding a community of good will to the rest of the world. These are people who are disenfranchised, dislocated, and will pose a strategic threat, potentially, as a breeding ground of terrorism for the future.

This tragedy is that the Government of Sudan remains deeply complicit in this genocide, supporting jingaweit militias and participating in attacks on civilians. Helicopter gunships strafe villages, spraying nail-like flachettes unsuitable for anything other than killing.

International monitors of all kinds have been attacked, including members of the African Union force deployed to Darfur to try to bring about a monitoring of the peace agreements that have been set forth. Government-backed militias have threatened foreigners and U.N. convoys.

In recent weeks, an American aid official was shot and wounded, and the U.N. was forced to withdraw its international staff in west Darfur to the provincial capital. Other NGOs are uneasy about their people and are talking about withdrawal.

Even today, we get reports of a new rampage--an attack on a village in Darfur by 350 armed militia. The report by the UN and the AU called it a ``senseless and premeditated savage attack.'' The militia ``rampaged through the village, killing, burning and destroying everything in their paths and leaving in their wake total destruction, with only the mosque and the school spared.''

I have a U.N. report, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, how has the international community responded to these issues? In recent weeks, the U.N. Security Council passed three resolutions. To be sure, to give them credit, there has been some progress. One resolution referred the situation in Darfur to the International Criminal Court. Another established a U.N. committee to recommend targeted sanctions against those responsible for human rights abuses.

But much has not been done. There have been no efforts to impose, or even seriously threaten, sanctions against the Government of Sudan. In fact, the Security Council promised significant assistance as a reward for the welcomed implementation of the January peace agreement, the north-sought agreement between Khartoum and the south, without any conditions related to Darfur. Our amendment, which Senator Brownback and I will be proposing, supports the peace agreement and allows assistance to implement that agreement. But we should not be rewarding the Government of Khartoum while thousands upon thousands of civilians in Darfur are dying.

This amendment will call for military no-fly zones over Darfur. Neither the Bush administration nor our NATO allies have addressed this critical issue. We need to act so that the kinds of tragedies we see in this picture to my right are no longer permitted.

This amendment calls for accelerated assistance to the African Union. A retired Marine colonel, Brian Steidle, who worked alongside the AU, has described the AU's effectiveness where it has been deployed. But there are currently only 2,200 African Union troops on the ground. Over 3,400 are authorized, and we hope it can grow to over 6,000 in the next year. We need to increase their numbers and provide whatever assistance they need. Therefore, I am offering a second amendment later in the debate on this underlying supplemental with Senators DeWine, Brownback, and others. It is a money appropriation or allocation for the AU to accelerate the deployment of boots on the ground.

But money alone will not bring security to Darfur. The Darfur Accountability Act calls for an expansion of the AU's mandate to include the protection of civilians. Ultimately, we will have to be realistic about what it takes to police an area the size of Texas. It will take many thousands of troops, more than the AU will be able to field. The 10,000 new U.N. troops authorized by the Security Council are therefore a welcome development. But, again, their role in Darfur is virtually undefined, certainly vague and uncertain as to whether they can be involved in this.

Mr. President, the people of Darfur will not be saved unless stopping genocide becomes a priority. Words and deeds need to match. This amendment will call on the administration to raise Darfur in all relevant bilateral and multilateral meetings. I hope we can get it raised.

I am pleased that Deputy Secretary of State Zoellick is going to Sudan this week. But unless we mobilize an international effort, this engagement will be insufficient. We have already seen a lot of lost opportunities. I will leave that for the record where President Bush, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and the Secretary of State have been in international areas where we can mobilize that kind of support. We simply cannot just keep calling it genocide and labeling it and talking about it; we need to do something about it. Stopping this evil is an urgent and highly moral issue for all of us to take on. That is why there is so much bipartisan focus on this issue.

We want to evoke the culture of life. We ought to be protecting those 10,000 people a month who are dying. How can we claim to be learning the lessons of history when we fail to act? How can we do that? We cannot continue to talk about moral responsibilities and then not act on them.

In his remarks in the piece that I put in the Record, Elie Wiesel put this clearly:

What pains and hurts most now is the simultaneity of

events. While we sit here and

discuss how to behave morally, both individually and

collectively, over there, in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan,

human beings kill and die.

Mr. President, we must act. The United States must lead a coalition of conscience to stop the genocide. That is what this amendment calls for. I urge my colleagues to support it. We will be back with the exact details. I am very appreciative of the leadership of Senator Brownback, Senator DeWine, and a number of individuals on both sides of the aisle. We need to make that coalition of conscience real. It is time to act. I believe this is an appropriate amendment on the supplemental.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation, the Extremely Hazardous Materials Rail Transportation Act of 2005, to ensure the safety and security of toxic chemicals that are transported across our nation's 170,000 mile rail network.

On January 6, 2005, a freight car carrying toxic chlorine gas derailed in South Carolina. The derailment caused a rupture that released a deadly gas cloud over the nearby community of Graniteville. As a result of this accident, nine people died and 318 needed medical attention. Many of those needing medical attention were first responders who arrived at the scene of the accident unaware that a tank car containing chlorine gas had ruptured. As one responder described it, ``I took a breath. That stuff grabbed me. It gagged me and brought me down to my knees. I talked to God and said, `I am not dying here.''' In the aftermath of the chlorine release, more than 5,000 area residents needed to be evacuated from their homes.

The Graniteville accident was the deadliest accident involving the transport of chlorine. But it was not the first. Since the use of rail for chlorine transport began in 1924, there had been four fatal accidents involving the release of chlorine, according to the Chlorine Institute. Thirteen people have died. In addition, the National Transportation Safety Board has investigated 14 derailments from 1995 to 2004 that caused the release of hazardous chemicals, including chlorine. In those instances, four people died and 5,517 were injured.

The Graniteville accident exposes fundamental failings in the transport of hazardous materials on America's rail system. These failings include pressurized rail tank cars that are vulnerable to rupture; lack of sufficient training for transporters and emergency responders; lack of sufficient notification to the communities that hazardous material train run through and a lack of coordination at the federal level between the many agencies that are involved in rail transport of hazardous materials.

Because of these failings, our Nation's freight rail infrastructure remains vulnerable to the release of hazardous materials either by accident or due to deliberate attack. The ``Extremely Hazardous Material Rail Transportation Act addresses these

safety and security issues. My legislation would require the DHS to coordinate Federal, State and local efforts to prevent terrorist acts and to respond to emergencies in the transport by rail of extremely hazardous materials. It requires the DHS to issue regulations that address the integrity of pressurized tank cars, the lack of sufficient training for transporters and emergency responders, and the lack of sufficient notification for communities. It would also require the DHS to study the possibility of reducing, through the use of alternate routes, the risks of freight transportation of extremely hazardous material; except in the case of emergencies or where such alternatives do not exist or are prohibitively expensive. Finally, it contains protections for employees who report on the safety and security of transportation by rail of extremely hazardous materials.

I hope my colleagues will support this legislation, and I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation, the Extremely Hazardous Materials Rail Transportation Act of 2005, to ensure the safety and security of toxic chemicals that are transported across our nation's 170,000 mile rail network.

On January 6, 2005, a freight car carrying toxic chlorine gas derailed in South Carolina. The derailment caused a rupture that released a deadly gas cloud over the nearby community of Graniteville. As a result of this accident, nine people died and 318 needed medical attention. Many of those needing medical attention were first responders who arrived at the scene of the accident unaware that a tank car containing chlorine gas had ruptured. As one responder described it, ``I took a breath. That stuff grabbed me. It gagged me and brought me down to my knees. I talked to God and said, `I am not dying here.''' In the aftermath of the chlorine release, more than 5,000 area residents needed to be evacuated from their homes.

The Graniteville accident was the deadliest accident involving the transport of chlorine. But it was not the first. Since the use of rail for chlorine transport began in 1924, there had been four fatal accidents involving the release of chlorine, according to the Chlorine Institute. Thirteen people have died. In addition, the National Transportation Safety Board has investigated 14 derailments from 1995 to 2004 that caused the release of hazardous chemicals, including chlorine. In those instances, four people died and 5,517 were injured.

The Graniteville accident exposes fundamental failings in the transport of hazardous materials on America's rail system. These failings include pressurized rail tank cars that are vulnerable to rupture; lack of sufficient training for transporters and emergency responders; lack of sufficient notification to the communities that hazardous material train run through and a lack of coordination at the federal level between the many agencies that are involved in rail transport of hazardous materials.

Because of these failings, our Nation's freight rail infrastructure remains vulnerable to the release of hazardous materials either by accident or due to deliberate attack. The ``Extremely Hazardous Material Rail Transportation Act addresses these

safety and security issues. My legislation would require the DHS to coordinate Federal, State and local efforts to prevent terrorist acts and to respond to emergencies in the transport by rail of extremely hazardous materials. It requires the DHS to issue regulations that address the integrity of pressurized tank cars, the lack of sufficient training for transporters and emergency responders, and the lack of sufficient notification for communities. It would also require the DHS to study the possibility of reducing, through the use of alternate routes, the risks of freight transportation of extremely hazardous material; except in the case of emergencies or where such alternatives do not exist or are prohibitively expensive. Finally, it contains protections for employees who report on the safety and security of transportation by rail of extremely hazardous materials.

I hope my colleagues will support this legislation, and I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, it is also my honor to bestow my congratulations on Rabbi Orenstein for his 35 years of service to Congregation Beth El and a lifetime of service to community and mankind.

His words this morning about love and our responsibility to our communities and attention, which is demonstrated both by his family and the Congregation Beth El, are testimony to a human being who has a heart that reflects that love in his everyday life.

Senator Lautenberg has gone through his resume, but the real issue of a man's life is what he has done for others, and no one has contributed more to his community or reached out to lift up his fellow man than Rabbi Orenstein.

I am honored that he was able to open this morning's session, but I am also honored to have him as a friend. Thank you very much for being here.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today along with my colleague, Senator Lautenberg, to introduce legislation, the Preserving Access to Affordable Drugs (PAAD) Act. This legislation is essential to ensuring that our most vulnerable seniors who have existing prescription drug coverage do not see a reduction or disruption in their coverage once the Medicare prescription drug program goes into effect.

Hundreds of thousands of seniors, including 190,000 in my State, currently enrolled in state pharmacy assistance programs (SPAPs) will be forced out of those programs and into a private drug plan under the Medicare prescription drug benefit. Additionally, approximately six million seniors, including 140,000 in New Jersey, who are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid will lose access to their Medicaid prescription drug benefits, which are more generous and provide greater access to a variety of drugs than the Medicare benefit will.

No senior should be made worse off by the new Medicare law. The law should expand benefits--not reduce them. The PAAD Act will make critical changes to the Medicare law to ensure that the above-mentioned benefits are safeguarded.

The PAAD Act will allow States to automatically enroll SPAP and dually eligible Medicaid beneficiaries into one or more preferred prescription drug plans to ensure that these beneficiaries are enrolled in a Medicare drug plan that maximizes both their Federal and State prescription drug coverage and ensures for a seamless transition to the new Medicare Part D drug benefit.

The PAAD Act will ensure that New Jersey seniors who currently receive prescription drug benefits under PAAD or through the State's Medicaid program are not made worse off by the new Medicare law.

The PAAD Act will allow New Jersey to provide supplemental Medicaid prescription drug benefits to low-income seniors and disabled who currently receive generous prescription drug benefits under the Medicaid program and who will now receive their prescription drug benefits through Medicare.

One of the goals of medicine is to do no harm. The manner in which the Bush Administration has chosen to implement the Medicare law violates that tenet. The Medicare legislation signed by the President created the State Pharmaceutical Assistance Transition Commission specifically to address the coordination of benefits between SPAPS, State Medicaid drug programs, and the new Medicare drug plan. The Commission was explicit in its recommendation to CMS that states be permitted to automatically enroll these beneficiaries in preferred prescription drug plans to ``enhance benefits to enrollees, encourage enrollment, and promote coordination between Medicare Part D and [states].'' Members of the Commission recognized that many blind, disabled, and aged beneficiaries, those who most need coverage, would not be able to navigate the plan selection process and could face gaps in coverage. Yet, CMS recently denied New Jersey's request to automatically enroll those Medicare beneficiaries currently enrolled in New Jersey's PAAD and Medicaid programs into a preferred Medicare prescription drug plan. This ruling effectively blocks New Jersey's efforts to preserve the generous prescription drug coverage the state currently provides to the 190,000 seniors enrolled in New Jersey's PAAD program and the 140,000 seniors and disabled enrolled in the state's Medicaid program when the new Medicare prescription drug benefit goes into effect on January 1, 2006.

Yesterday, I was joined by Senator Lautenberg in writing to the President to express our sincere dismay over the recent CMS ruling. It is clear that permitting states to automatically enroll these beneficiaries would guarantee that these seniors continue to receive the same level of prescription drug coverage, which is more generous than the coverage that will be available under the new Medicare benefit. Furthermore, auto enrollment would relieve beneficiaries from the anxiety of selecting the appropriate plan to ensure that their drug coverage is maximized. Certainly, beneficiaries who prefer to select their own prescription drug plan should have that choice, but those who want the state to act on their behalf to ensure that they receive the most comprehensive and seamless coverage should be afforded that option.

This legislation is critical to preserving and protecting existing prescription drug coverage while expanding it to those who currently lack such coverage. States like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York, States that have well-established, generous prescription drug plans for seniors and the disabled, should not be prevented from continuing to provide the same level of coverage under the new Medicare law. I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this legislation and preserve prescription drug benefits for all seniors.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today along with my colleague, Senator Lautenberg, to introduce legislation, the Preserving Access to Affordable Drugs (PAAD) Act. This legislation is essential to ensuring that our most vulnerable seniors who have existing prescription drug coverage do not see a reduction or disruption in their coverage once the Medicare prescription drug program goes into effect.

Hundreds of thousands of seniors, including 190,000 in my State, currently enrolled in state pharmacy assistance programs (SPAPs) will be forced out of those programs and into a private drug plan under the Medicare prescription drug benefit. Additionally, approximately six million seniors, including 140,000 in New Jersey, who are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid will lose access to their Medicaid prescription drug benefits, which are more generous and provide greater access to a variety of drugs than the Medicare benefit will.

No senior should be made worse off by the new Medicare law. The law should expand benefits--not reduce them. The PAAD Act will make critical changes to the Medicare law to ensure that the above-mentioned benefits are safeguarded.

The PAAD Act will allow States to automatically enroll SPAP and dually eligible Medicaid beneficiaries into one or more preferred prescription drug plans to ensure that these beneficiaries are enrolled in a Medicare drug plan that maximizes both their Federal and State prescription drug coverage and ensures for a seamless transition to the new Medicare Part D drug benefit.

The PAAD Act will ensure that New Jersey seniors who currently receive prescription drug benefits under PAAD or through the State's Medicaid program are not made worse off by the new Medicare law.

The PAAD Act will allow New Jersey to provide supplemental Medicaid prescription drug benefits to low-income seniors and disabled who currently receive generous prescription drug benefits under the Medicaid program and who will now receive their prescription drug benefits through Medicare.

One of the goals of medicine is to do no harm. The manner in which the Bush Administration has chosen to implement the Medicare law violates that tenet. The Medicare legislation signed by the President created the State Pharmaceutical Assistance Transition Commission specifically to address the coordination of benefits between SPAPS, State Medicaid drug programs, and the new Medicare drug plan. The Commission was explicit in its recommendation to CMS that states be permitted to automatically enroll these beneficiaries in preferred prescription drug plans to ``enhance benefits to enrollees, encourage enrollment, and promote coordination between Medicare Part D and [states].'' Members of the Commission recognized that many blind, disabled, and aged beneficiaries, those who most need coverage, would not be able to navigate the plan selection process and could face gaps in coverage. Yet, CMS recently denied New Jersey's request to automatically enroll those Medicare beneficiaries currently enrolled in New Jersey's PAAD and Medicaid programs into a preferred Medicare prescription drug plan. This ruling effectively blocks New Jersey's efforts to preserve the generous prescription drug coverage the state currently provides to the 190,000 seniors enrolled in New Jersey's PAAD program and the 140,000 seniors and disabled enrolled in the state's Medicaid program when the new Medicare prescription drug benefit goes into effect on January 1, 2006.

Yesterday, I was joined by Senator Lautenberg in writing to the President to express our sincere dismay over the recent CMS ruling. It is clear that permitting states to automatically enroll these beneficiaries would guarantee that these seniors continue to receive the same level of prescription drug coverage, which is more generous than the coverage that will be available under the new Medicare benefit. Furthermore, auto enrollment would relieve beneficiaries from the anxiety of selecting the appropriate plan to ensure that their drug coverage is maximized. Certainly, beneficiaries who prefer to select their own prescription drug plan should have that choice, but those who want the state to act on their behalf to ensure that they receive the most comprehensive and seamless coverage should be afforded that option.

This legislation is critical to preserving and protecting existing prescription drug coverage while expanding it to those who currently lack such coverage. States like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York, States that have well-established, generous prescription drug plans for seniors and the disabled, should not be prevented from continuing to provide the same level of coverage under the new Medicare law. I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this legislation and preserve prescription drug benefits for all seniors.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I, too, rise to speak strongly and forcefully in support of the bipartisan amendment Senators Smith and Bingaman have offered. The idea of cutting $15 billion in the Medicaid Program mandated under this resolution is a bad fundamental choice for our Nation. It is also a bad policy-setting device because it lets the budget process drive Medicaid reform. This amendment directs the creation of a Medicaid commission to investigate and consider possible improvements.

A thoughtful, reasoned approach to limiting the growth in the cost of the Medicaid Program, which is driven by enrollments and the high cost of health care. And while there may be fraud and abuse, the big issue is that we have a health care problem and how do we finance it. It is being ignored by using what I think is a shotgun approach as opposed to the thoughtful, reasoned approach of how Medicaid reform should be done. That is what this amendment does.

Last week, Senators Wyden, Murray, Johnson, and I offered a successful amendment during the markup of the budget resolution. The sense of the

Senate was agreed to unanimously by the Budget Committee. As a part of this resolution, it states that the Finance Committee shall not achieve any savings under reconciliation that would cap Federal Medicaid spending, shift Medicaid costs to the States or providers, or undermine the Federal guarantee of Medicaid health insurance.

If this amendment is not accepted--and it is not possible, in my view, to cut $15 billion from Medicaid without violating that agreement--what we are going to be doing is shifting $15 billion to the States; if not to the States, to the local governments; if not to the local governments, to the health care providers. It is going to be charity care. It is going to be paid for. We are making a clear choice of transferring the responsibility for all of this care to someone else, moving it off the Federal books on to State and local or even private providers. Maybe we are shifting it on to the streets of our cities and the homeless.

We are making another choice, too, which is unacceptable. The fact is, we are trying to force others to make a choice of whether we say hospice care is more important than mental illness treatment or more important than people having the ability to have hearing and other kinds of specialty treatments. We are taking away the options of how we treat health care and, by the way, preventative care. We are also making a choice which I find completely hard to understand. Why have we decided that this $15 billion we have mandated the Finance Committee to find, why are we saying this $15 billion is so much more important than the cumulative $204 billion or the tax cuts for those making over $1 million? Isn't this a society that believes in sharing the responsibility for all of us to have access to a better life? We live in a society which provides enormous opportunity for so many, and many of us have benefitted from it, and we are making a clear choice that it is more important that this $15 billion be cut than $204 billion that is accumulating for tax cuts to the very wealthy. I do not think these are the choices the American people would make if they had those choices laid before them.

I don't understand. We are saying the most vulnerable should be dealt with without rational and reasoned expectations of where those cuts are going to come, and we are making all kinds of choices that are embedded in these kinds of issues. I believe the idea of a commission to stand back and find that reasoned and informed judgment is important.

Certainly.

The Senator from New Hampshire knows very well that what we are discussing is whether you extend tax cuts for those who earn over a million dollars. It is a debate we can have about language, about extension or raising, but at least this Senator would argue that it is more important to make sure that we have a health insurance program for everyone in this society rather than tax cuts for millionaires. These cuts will force states to raise taxes in order to raise the funds that will be necessary to maintain health care under Medicaid.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to make India eligible for assistance under the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

India is at a tipping point. A silent tsunami is at hand, and we can either act now or witness the preventable deaths of millions of people. An estimated 5.1 million people are infected with the HIV virus in India, second only to South Africa. HIV/AIDS has been reported in almost all the states and union territories of the country. In some parts of the country, the prevalence rates are similar to those in the hardest-hit areas of sub-Saharan Africa. In Belgaun in Karnataka, for instance, a district whose population is greater than that of Ireland, 4.5 percent are infected.

The epidemic is spreading rapidly from urban to rural areas and from high-risk groups such as sex workers and IV drug users to the general population. The mobility of India's population threatens to spread HIV/ AIDS around the country. And with an overall population larger than the whole of Africa, there exists a serious threat of catastrophe. One estimate, by the CIA, predicted that 20 to 25 million could be infected by 2010, more than in any other country in the world.

India's political leaders, public health officials, non-governmental organizations, and medical and scientific communities have taken important steps to combat HIV/AIDS. India, the world's largest democracy, has skilled governmental and civil society actors who are committed to a new awareness of the AIDS crisis and strategic approaches to combating the disease. But significant gaps remain in the Indian health care system's ability to address the crisis. Only 29 cents per capita are spent in India to combat HIV/AIDS. This amount is significantly less than in countries that have succeeded at stemming the disease, such as Thailand (55 cents) and Uganda ($1.85).

There is an urgent need for assistance in care and treatment. More resources are necessary for public education, as demonstrated by the fact that 90 percent of Indians with HIV do not know they are infected. There is also a desperate need for assistance in tracking and monitoring the epidemic, merely to ascertain its full scope. These and other gaps require immediate and sustained U.S. engagement and contribution of resources.

The U.S. government is doing important work to combat HIV/AIDS in India, but the available resources are insufficient. To provide the necessary

assistance, and to demonstrate America's commitment to helping India combat HIV/AIDS, it is critical that India become eligible for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Smaller countries may seem more manageable. Combating HIV/AIDS in a country the size of India may seem daunting. But if we invest now in stopping this epidemic, if we take advantage of this window of opportunity, we can head off a catastrophe.

In addition to adding India to the list of countries eligible for PEPFAR assistance, this bill authorizes whatever funds are necessary to provide this assistance. It thus ensures that confronting the epidemic in India does not come at the expense of other countries. We must continue to expand the list of eligible countries in recognition of the global nature of this pandemic. We must also accelerate assistance to African and Caribbean countries already included as focus countries. Finally, we must increase overall funding to combat HIV/AIDS.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to make India eligible for assistance under the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

India is at a tipping point. A silent tsunami is at hand, and we can either act now or witness the preventable deaths of millions of people. An estimated 5.1 million people are infected with the HIV virus in India, second only to South Africa. HIV/AIDS has been reported in almost all the states and union territories of the country. In some parts of the country, the prevalence rates are similar to those in the hardest-hit areas of sub-Saharan Africa. In Belgaun in Karnataka, for instance, a district whose population is greater than that of Ireland, 4.5 percent are infected.

The epidemic is spreading rapidly from urban to rural areas and from high-risk groups such as sex workers and IV drug users to the general population. The mobility of India's population threatens to spread HIV/ AIDS around the country. And with an overall population larger than the whole of Africa, there exists a serious threat of catastrophe. One estimate, by the CIA, predicted that 20 to 25 million could be infected by 2010, more than in any other country in the world.

India's political leaders, public health officials, non-governmental organizations, and medical and scientific communities have taken important steps to combat HIV/AIDS. India, the world's largest democracy, has skilled governmental and civil society actors who are committed to a new awareness of the AIDS crisis and strategic approaches to combating the disease. But significant gaps remain in the Indian health care system's ability to address the crisis. Only 29 cents per capita are spent in India to combat HIV/AIDS. This amount is significantly less than in countries that have succeeded at stemming the disease, such as Thailand (55 cents) and Uganda ($1.85).

There is an urgent need for assistance in care and treatment. More resources are necessary for public education, as demonstrated by the fact that 90 percent of Indians with HIV do not know they are infected. There is also a desperate need for assistance in tracking and monitoring the epidemic, merely to ascertain its full scope. These and other gaps require immediate and sustained U.S. engagement and contribution of resources.

The U.S. government is doing important work to combat HIV/AIDS in India, but the available resources are insufficient. To provide the necessary

assistance, and to demonstrate America's commitment to helping India combat HIV/AIDS, it is critical that India become eligible for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Smaller countries may seem more manageable. Combating HIV/AIDS in a country the size of India may seem daunting. But if we invest now in stopping this epidemic, if we take advantage of this window of opportunity, we can head off a catastrophe.

In addition to adding India to the list of countries eligible for PEPFAR assistance, this bill authorizes whatever funds are necessary to provide this assistance. It thus ensures that confronting the epidemic in India does not come at the expense of other countries. We must continue to expand the list of eligible countries in recognition of the global nature of this pandemic. We must also accelerate assistance to African and Caribbean countries already included as focus countries. Finally, we must increase overall funding to combat HIV/AIDS.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I appreciate the leadership that Senators Smith and Bingaman are showing with regard to Medicaid.

I rise today to speak in support of the pending bipartisan amendment offered by Senators Smith and Bingaman to eliminate the $15 billion in cuts to the Medicaid program mandated under this resolution. Instead of letting the budget process drive Medicaid reform, this amendment directs the creation of a bipartisan Medicaid commission to investigate and consider possible improvements to the Medicaid program. In other words, this amendment would ensure that policy drives Medicaid reform, not the arbitrary and unjustified cuts in this resolution.

Last week Senators Wyden, Murray, Johnson and I offered a successful amendment during markup of this resolution. The sense of the Senate we offered, which was agreed to unanimously by the Budget Committee and is a part of this resolution, states that the Finance Committee shall not achieve any savings under reconciliation that would cap Federal Medicaid spending, shift Medicaid costs to the States or providers, or undermine the Federal guarantee of Medicaid health insurance.

It simply is not possible to cut $15 billion from the Medicaid program without violating this agreement. Cutting $15 billion from Medicaid means taking $15 billion directly from the States. It means that States will be left with the tough choices of decreasing reimbursements to providers, eliminating services like prescription drugs and specialized services for the mentally retarded for families and elderly who rely on Medicaid now for these services, or raising taxes to preserve these services.

These cuts come at a time in which States are already struggling with the escalating costs of the Medicaid program. In 1985, 8 percent of State budgets went to Medicaid. Today, on average, 22 percent of States' budgets are spent on Medicaid. In New Jersey, fourteen percent of the State budget is spent on Medicaid. States are having to make tough choices about whether to cut critical health services for their most vulnerable or reducing funding for education programs.

What this resolution says to States and the 53 million children, pregnant women, elderly, and disabled who would be uninsured without Medicaid coverage is that they are simply going to have tough decisions. We are in tough budget times so you are going to have to choose between cutting health care or education.

I would like to share with my colleagues a couple of charts that demonstrate the tough choices that Chairman Gregg and the President are asking us to make. This first chart compares the $15 billion in Medicaid cuts that the Chairman has assumed to balance the budget along with the $204 billion cost of making the President's tax cuts for millionaires permanent. These are the tough choices--preserving access to health care for millions of poor Americans or handing out hundreds of millions in taxes to the wealthiest in our country--which this budget poses. Frankly, I don't think this is a tough choice. It is an easy one. We must preserve access to health care for our Nation's most vulnerable and we must maintain our Federal obligation to the States to pay our fair share for these services.

I would like to point out that States are also facing massive costs as they work to transition their Medicaid beneficiaries who are dually eligible for Medicare into the new Medicare prescription drug benefit. States like New Jersey that have State pharmacy assistance programs for non-Medicaid eligible seniors will also have to bear significant new costs to ensure that these programs coordinate with the new Medicare drug benefit.

Not only are States going to have to bear enormous costs of transitioning these beneficiaries, but if they choose to provide more generous benefits than offered under the Medicare law they will have to finance those benefits with State dollars. My State of New Jersey, which plans to wraparound the Medicare benefit to ensure that those on Medicaid have access to the prescription drugs they need, has estimated that the State will spend an additional $92 million in 2005 and 2006 to pay for these costs.

Now, under this resolution, New Jersey would lose $90 million a year in Federal Medicaid funding. How much more money is the Federal Government going to demand from the States? It is outrageous and unfair and it is an abdication of our Federal responsibility to force these costs on the States.

I asked my State to tell me what kind of impact that a $90 million loss in Federal funding would have on New Jersey's Medicaid program. The Medicaid director in my State gave me two options: the State will either have to eliminate health insurance for more than 20,000 low- income children and pregnant women who are considered ``optional'' beneficiaries because they earn just above 133 percent of the poverty level, which is $20,000 for a family of four. Or the State could eliminate so called ``optional'' services, including dental care, pediatric and optometric care, hearing aid services, optical appliances, psychological services, hospice care, and medical day care for individuals with Alzheimer's and dementia. And of course, there is a third option--increasing taxes to maintain these services.

We simply can't address the underlying problem of escalating health care costs, which are driving up the costs of the Medicaid program, by asking States to cough up more money or by forcing them to eliminate critical services. We need meaningful, long-term solutions that will control health care costs across the board for Medicaid, as well as for Medicare and private insurance.

We need to change the fact that nationally 42 percent of Medicaid expenditures are spent on Medicare beneficiaries. This is because Medicare does not provide long-term care. So when we talk about a Medicaid crisis, what we really should talk about is the crisis in long-term care in this country. We are an aging population. As my generation retires, we will demand more long-term care services. Yet we have no long-term care system in this country. As it currently stands, the Medicaid program is our long-term care program.

The Smith-Bingaman amendment directs the creation of a bipartisan Medicaid commission to investigate these issues and to develop recommendations on how to decrease costs in the Medicaid program without burdening States or cutting services. A commission comprised of members of congress, governors, State Medicaid directors, and beneficiary advocates is necessary to develop real policies to strengthen Medicaid. It simply does not make sense to pull a number out of thin air like this resolution does. Policy should drive the numbers--not the other way around.

I urge all of my colleagues to adopt the sensible approach proposed by Senators Smith and Bingaman.

I don't understand how we can have a process of Medicaid reform driven by budgets without thinking through where that is going to come from. We heard our other colleague talk about where the burden of those cuts will fall.

I specifically asked what would happen if the proportionate deduction of cuts in New Jersey were to occur, which would be by the Senate's version about $90 million to the State, and the gross-up would be $180 million.

We are talking about Alzheimer's daycare for seniors. We are talking about hospice care. We are talking about basic dental, chiropractic care, hearing aids, and optical for our seniors.

It is impossible to understand how we want to take this hard cut without knowing the direction we are going to take.

Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to support the intelligent and responsible approach that Senators Smith and Bingaman proposed.

Mr. President, the process of developing a budget each year provides an opportunity to take stock of our priorities as a nation.

The President outlines his priorities through his budget, but it is the Congress, with its control of the purse strings, that is ultimately charged with the responsibility of fashioning and enacting legislation.

Regrettably, the priorities reflected in this budget resolution-- which mirror those in the administration's budget proposal--are wrong for America and certainly wrong for the people of New Jersey.

In New Jersey, we are particularly sensitive to the choices made by this administration and its allies in Congress, since we provide the greatest contribution of taxes paid relative to what we get back from the Federal Government. Our return on the Federal dollar has fallen from 70 cents to a meager 57 cents under the Bush administration. This budget will only further increase the strain on New Jersey's citizens, especially our most vulnerable: our children, our disabled, and our seniors.

According to the resolution before us, this administration and this congressional leadership's priorities include underfunding No Child Left Behind by an astounding $12 billion next year, which means that 53,152 students in New Jersey will not be served by the title I program and 32,822 fewer kids in New Jersey will have a safe place to go after school. I am disappointed that this body on Monday rejected an opportunity to restore some of this funding.

According to this resolution, Republican leadership's priorities include cutting $15 billion from the Medicaid Program over the next 5 years. If these cuts take effect, New Jersey would lose $90 million a year in Federal Medicaid funding.

I asked my State to tell me what they would do if they lost this funding. They told me there are two options: The State will either have to eliminate health insurance for more than 20,000 low-income children and pregnant women who are considered ``optional'' beneficiaries because they earn just above 133 percent of the poverty level, which is $20,000 for a family of four; or, the State could eliminate ``optional'' services, including dental care, hearing aid services, psychological services, and medical daycare for individuals with Alzheimer's and dementia.

The Republican leadership's priorities include cutting Amtrak's entire operating subsidy. I doubt the 82,000 commuters who ride New Jersey Transit trains every day would agree with this policy choice, since their trains operate along Amtrak's Northeast corridor rail. Neither, I know, would the literally millions who rely on Amtrak to travel interstate.

Let's not forget cuts for our veterans and first responders and weakened investment in community development. The list goes on and on.

All in all, under President Bush's budget, my home State of New Jersey stands to lose nearly $300 million next year, adjusted for inflation, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and that is before you even estimate his implied cuts to Medicaid. If Congress fails to act, cuts under our budget could be of a similar magnitude.

These cuts do not come as part of some shared sacrifice driven by tough fiscal times, as some would have us believe. Most of these program cuts are only a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of President Bush's tax cuts for the most fortunate.

In all, the Bush administration has reduced Federal revenues to their lowest level as a share of the economy since the 1950s. As a consequence, we no longer have the resources to deal with the Nation's priorities--that is why they want to cut funding for veterans and education and health care and community development.

Next year, people with incomes greater than $1 million will receive $32 billion from President Bush's tax breaks. Compare this $32 billion cost to the $220 million that the President has proposed cutting from the Low Income Heating Assistance Program, which helps low-income families and seniors pay their heating and cooling bills. We would literally be throwing people out in the cold--405,000 of them, to be precise, or more than 7,000 in New Jersey--to pay for less than 1 percent of President Bush's tax breaks for millionaires.

This choice simply does not reflect our Nation's fundamental values. I don't think it reflects the values of even those benefiting most from it. Nor does it address the real needs of working families in New Jersey and across America.

That reality includes rising health care costs that are driving families into bankruptcy like never before and preventing businesses from creating jobs. It includes growing wage disparity and a labor market that's stayed weaker for longer coming out of a recession than any other time on record.

According to the Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, more than 70 percent of the benefits of the President's tax breaks enacted in 2001 and 2003 go to the 20 percent of taxpayers with the highest incomes. More than 25 percent of the taxcut benefits go to the top 1 percent.

I believe that America stays strong by investing in its people and its communities, not by abandoning them.

Let's remember the context. Since President Bush took office, the Federal budget deficit has deteriorated every year. This year, we are expected to be $427 billion in the hole.

In light of this record, President Bush and his Congressional allies' recent claims of fiscal responsibility simply are not credible. This budget makes those claims even less credible by achieving much of its purported ``cost savings'' by passing the buck to State and local governments.

Lowering the numbers here in Washington is not the same thing as fiscal discipline if this is simply an exercise in shifting cost burdens to states and communities. That is hardly a plus for the American people and certainly not for New Jersey.

Our States are already stretched too thin. In New Jersey, we have a budget shortfall of $4-$5 billion and annual property tax increases of 7 percent. Much of the reality for States in budget and tax policy has been the result of cost burdens and unfunded mandates passed down from this administration and its allies in Congress.

We have heard claims from the other side that their tax cuts for the most fortunate are somehow responsible for providing a boost to our economy. But as any serious minded economist not on the Republican payroll will tell you, the real story of our modest growth has

been the longest sustained monetary expansion on record by the Federal Reserve.

Claims that the tax cuts are responsible for significant economic growth are reminiscent of a rooster taking credit for the Sun coming up.

The more noticeable result of the tax cuts has been an explosion in our Nation's debt, starting with the $1.8 trillion cost over 10 years of making the cuts permanent. If we continue along the path set by this administration, by 2015, each family's share of the national debt will be $73,563. This is simply unacceptable.

As we develop this year's budget, I hope we take a long, hard look at the priorities our Nation has followed under this president. Because, in my view, those priorities need major changes.

As I said earlier, it is the job of the President to reflect his priorities, but it is the role of Congress to reflect the priorities of America, of our families, and of our workers.

I hope we will not fail them.